SUPAG Insights November 2024

THE LIFE AND PORTRAIT WORKS OF JOSE LASPIÑAS: TRADITIONAL ART PATRONAGE IN DUMAGUETE FROM 1935 TO 1994

GERARD JUTSZE D. PAMATE

ABSTRACT

         This article examines the life and career of Jose Saavedra Laspiñas (b.1916 - d.2006), a well-known portrait painter from Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Philippines, who produced a considerable body of work from the early 1930s until 1994, when he ceased painting due to blindness. His early painting career as an apprentice with his father, Andres Laspiñas, his admission to the University of the Philippines fine arts program under Fernando Amorsolo, and his contact with a German impressionist. It describes the stages of his work as a cohesive visual style and how it evolved into an ideological tool of paintings under private and political patronage. His artistic career was divided into the Dumaguete Period (1933-1985) and the Tasmania-Sydney Period (1985-1994). This paper provides an account of Laspiñas' artistic career in two countries, as well as an evaluation of the private art patronage system. The result is a historical chronicle of his colorful life and works for 70 years. It further provides a closer examination of Dumaguete City's patronage system and how these works were ideologically created not only by art influences he gained but also by the demands of a group in society that directed his art.

Keywords: portrait paintings, political art, social product, political elites, political aesthetics